Presently, inductive noise caused by many switching simultaneously is a major design and performance limitation of high-speed, high pin-out integrated circuit chips. Inductive noise, also referred to as ground bounce, is attributed to when a large number of chip output drivers switch simultaneously. The simultaneous switching causes a substantial transient current to appear in the chip's ground and power distribution systems. This transient current causes a corresponding transient voltage difference to develop between the ground in the chip and the ground in an associated printed wiring board (PWB). This voltage difference can cause false switching of integrated circuit devices and corresponding system errors or loss of data. A more detailed discussion of inductive noise is provided in A. J. Rainal, "Computing Inductive Noise of Chip Packages", AT & T Bell Laboratories Tech. J., Vol. 63, No. 1, (1984), which is incorporated by reference herein.
Although a pin-out array size of 256 .times.256 can be fabricated on a single chip, such a large array is presently impractical because of the inductive noise that would be generated by the large number of output drivers that provide data signals on corresponding output leads. Various techniques for reducing inductive noise are known. One such technique uses a pair of leads and corresponding balanced circuit drivers for transmitting each data signal. An exemplary balanced driver system is described in A. J. Rainal, "Eliminating Inductive Noise of External Chip Interconnections", IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 126-129 (1994), which is incorporated by reference herein. In such a system, a data signal is transmitted by causing the current traversing a first output lead of the pair to have the same amplitude but opposite polarity of the current traversing the other output lead to negate inductive noise. However, balanced driver techniques tend to be difficult to implement in CMOS integrated circuits because of the inherent difficulty in causing two CMOS drivers to switch simultaneously in controlling the current traversing the balanced output lead pair. This is especially the case for data signal rise times on the order of less than three nanoseconds.
Thus, a need exists for a integrated circuit driver technique that reduces inductive noise and can be implemented in a variety of different types of semiconductor devices including CMOS devices.